Anne Applebaum prattles about the divide in America between the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class.

Instapundit pointed me to this piece, so I read it:

Despite all the loud talk of the "1 per cent" of Americans who, according to a recent study, receive about 17 per cent of the income, a percentage which has more than doubled since 1979, the existence of a very small group of very rich people has never bothered Americans. But the fact that some 20 per cent of Americans now receive some 53 per cent of the income is devastating.

I would argue that the growing divisions within the American middle class are far more important than the gap between the very richest and everybody else. They are important because to be "middle class", in America, has such positive connotations, and because most Americans think they belong in it...

"Middle America" also once implied the existence of a broad group of people who had similar values and a similar lifestyle. If you had a small suburban home, a car, a child at a state university, an annual holiday on a Michigan lake, you were part of it. But, at some point in the past 20 years, a family living at that level lost the sense that it was doing "well", and probably struggled even to stay there. Now it seems you need a McMansion, children at private universities, two cars, a ski trip in the winter and a summer vacation in Europe in order to feel as if you are doing minimally "well". ...

What?! "It seems..."? It doesn't seem that way to me! I'm securely in the "upper middle class" as Applebaum describes it, yet I don't see myself as easily grasping the things on that list of what it takes to feel you're doing "minimally 'well.'" Why would people distributed throughout the middle class feel left behind because they can't get all that? Applebaum seems rad [...]

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